The Paul Taylor Dance Company will appear at the University of Utah's Kingsbury Hall in Salt Lake City for one performance on Tuesday, October 12, 2004. The program includes "Arden Court," "Dante Variations," and "Piazzola Caldera." The Salt Lake press previews.

Although half the size of its parent company, the Paul Taylor Dance Company, Taylor 2's six dancers filled the stage with their mix of athleticism and grace. The dancers also demonstrated the great range that Friday's show demanded of them.

The Paul Taylor Dance Company appears at The University of Washington's Meany Hall for the Performing Arts in Seattle from Thursday through Saturday, November 18-20, 2004. Programmed are three works never before performed in this area: "Klezmerbluegrass," "Dante Variations," and "Promethean Fire." Curtain is at 8:00 p.m. for all three performances. Moira Macdonald previews in The Seattle Times:

Paul Taylor used to be one of my choreographic heros. His stature was diminished slightly in my eyes by the showing of three of his latest dances. By his own admission in his quite wonderful autobiography, Private Domain, he purports to work very hard at not repeating himself. I’ve long agreed that he has been successful at this until now.

The 2002 Promethean Fire was derivative of himself. It was the (strange) experience of watching a paint-by-numbers dance of his own movement vocabulary. Let’s see, we’ll put in four strong lunges with a reach of the right arm with the hand jutting out each time from the shoulder, we’ll run with the arms dipping low and reaching up and out, palms up, we’ll do quick parallel sissonnes. In his other dances that I’ve seen, he created a fresh movement vocabulary (motifs if you will) for each one. Roses does not look like Cloven Kingdom, which does not look like Company B, etc. However, Promethean Fire looks like ALL of his dances thrown together in a salade russe. On the plus side, it is organized well and is set to a score that I’ve always wanted to see someone make a dance to – the Bach Toccata and Fugue in D minor plus two Preludes. I just wish he had made something truly new. And I have to ask to myself, “Why does using ones own vocabulary work for some (like Martha Graham) and not for Taylor, at least in this case?” Is he trying to codify his style?

Dante Variations I found to be the most unique and interesting on the bill. It was really like something out of a sketch or painting depicting tormented souls. It begins and end with the dancers in a clump and as they peel off, it looks as if the whole group is given a jolt charge of electricity. (Oh, that nasty devil!)

It’s to music by Ligeti (one of the flavors-of-the-month composers; see Phillip Glass, among others) and is made slightly more tolerable here by its adaption to barrel organ. If you say “Ligeti” four times in a row real fast several times, you get how his music sounds to my ear. Hearing one of the San Francisco Ballet’s accompanists at a pre-performance talk a few months ago, who played for one of Christopher Wheeldon’s many creations to this composer, didn’t help my impression. Very “notey.” [La-DAH-dah-DAH-dah-dah, la-DAH-dah-DAH-dah-dah in a quick rhythm.]

Klezmerbluegrass is to traditional Jewish music, arranged by Margot Leverett and was a good “opener.” Bouncy, light and with just a hint of melancholy, I felt like the commissioning organization got their money’s worth.

As always it was a pleasure seeing Taylor’s beautiful and strong dancers. It was very interesting to observe that while the pre-performance lecturer said to look at the varying body types in the Company – and I was nodding my head, as I had known this to be true – the Company has undergone a big change. While the women’s hair styles were different, I have to say that the look of his company has become much more uniform. No extreme short to tall and tolerance for builds. The men particularly looked like they came out of the same cookie-cutter, skin color aside. Also in the past, Taylor tended to choose dancers with Graham backgrounds. This has shifted to mainly ballet backgrounds and this has most definitely altered the look and feel of this 50 year-old major American modern dance company.

Critics wonder if "Promethean Fire," a composition by the Paul Taylor Dance Company at the Zellerbach Theater through Saturday, is Taylor's response to 9/11, or just a "highly charged, well structured dance open to interpretation." Reason: It is a highly athletic piece, somber yet showing signs of hope and renewal.

The sense of something new and wonderful emerging from mixed traditions bursts out of "Klezmerbluegrass," the new work by Paul Taylor that opened his company's magnificent program Thursday night at the Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater. It is clear before the curtain goes up, in Margot Leverett's lyrical arrangement of klezmer and bluegrass music. The mosaic is there at all once: the swooping, supple notes of the clarinet, the wailing violin, the loping guitar that quickens the pace, joined by bright, lift-you-out-of-your-seat fiddling. Taylor responds with dancing that is a full-out rush of joy

The Soloist After 50 Years, Paul Taylor Still Creates Works for His Dance Company. But His Favorite Steps Are the Ones That He Takes on His Own. By Sarah Kaufman Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, December 16, 2004; Page C01 MATTITUCK, N.Y.

Quote:

A crooked green mailbox with the name "Taylor" stenciled on it marks a crooked stone drive that winds past tangled pine trees to a low-slung, gray-shingled cottage, whose front door is opened by one of the world's greatest living choreographers.

Mr. Taylor's love of natural movement may be seen clearly in "Esplanade," one of 19 dances to be performed in the company's ambitious "50 Years in the Making: A Season in Solid Gold," a three-week engagement that opens on Tuesday at City Center.

Mr. Cunningham is an introverted artist, appealing to a largish audience, but still difficult, still a connoisseur item. Mr. Taylor, conversely, is a hearty extrovert. He had his experimental phase, and he has done serious work. But for all the winning variety of his oeuvre, and for all the genuine sensitivity with which he responds to a vast range of music, what distinguishes a Taylor dance is its exuberant physicality.

Mr. Taylor layers incidents with so many ambiguities that you don't always know if you're watching a rehearsal of the ballet presided over by a stern Rehearsal Mistress (Heather Berest), an actual performance of the ballet or the real-life crime case that inspired it.

The Complexity of Simplicity A master sums up 50 years of choreographic marvels; a young Israeli talent falls into bed

by DEBORAH JOWITT the Village Voice

One reason for the admiration, I think, is that he presents dancers who are more believably like us than ballet virtuosos are — robust, and skilled at looking a little rough around the edges. They're better than we are at tenderness — that is, at revealing it through a gesture...

Celebrating its 50th anniversary with a tour to the full 50 United States, the Paul Taylor Dance Company is playing three weeks in New York City, its hometown. The repertoire encompasses a host of golden (and silver) oldies and a pair of new works. Newish, anyway; both had their premieres out of town.

Klezmerbluegrass honors an even more venerable anniversary than Taylor can lay claim to. The piece was commissioned by the National Foundation for Jewish Culture to celebrate 350 years of Jewish life in America.

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